The Funeral
by Anaxn
Summary: Funerals are solomn occasions. The mourners remember what the person meant to them. But for one particular person in Sound Country, the present funeral has driven him undeground, alone, as Kabuto debates what to do now that Orochimaru is dead.


The Funeral

_I'm coming up only to hold you under.  
I'm coming up only to show you wrong._

Orochimaru's hideout was silent; All of his important officers were topside and other personnel had been dismissed for the day. All the lights and candles had been extinguished, even underground, except for a single flame in the labs. This only light shone on unfinished scrolls, medical diagrams, and a pair of hands, holding together the head that rested there. An exhausted groan issued from under the curtain of silver hair and Kabuto lifted his face to gaze halfheartedly into the candle flame. He had been forced to plead illness in order to keep this light on. It was Sound country tradition to put out all lights when a person died, to make sure their spirit did not attach to the flame. The man gave another desperate groan and let himself rest his head on the desk again. It wouldn't be this hard if she wasn't here. If Sakura had not returned to Sound Country, all his problems would be solved.

_And to know you is hard; we wonder  
To know you all wrong; we warn._

When he had first come here, Sakura was so young. The daughter of Sound Country's founder was only two when he arrived, and only six when her father cruelly sent her to Konoha alone. The girl had almost no contact with her father, who was always busy with one experiment or another, and he quickly stepped in to fill that role. He had become "Nii-san", older brother, and remained so even after they were seperated. Two years after she was sent off and he turned fourteen (he remembered finding a present to give to her once he got back, but he was never able to get it to her; they weren't suppposed to know each other.), they finally met again under the names Sakura Haruno and Kabuto Yakushi. But he had always been Yakushi to her. She never knew that his name was that of the most prominent house of Konoha and she still didn't. That was part of what hurt so much. The other part was knowing that who she was, was nothing like who she was going to be.

_Really too late to call,  
So we wait for morning to wake you  
That's all we got._

She had arrived this afternoon and changed her dress the moment she did. He supposed she wanted to honor her late father with her traditional Sound clothes. She had also released her genjutsu, startling all the people around her with her father's face. He laughed to himself, picking himself up and rolling a few scrolls. He had noticed all this from down the hall, for he refused to talk to her any sooner than he had too. He also noticed the slight marks under her eyes; circles from lack of sleep and crying, since she had traveled all night to reach Otogakure in time for the funeral. The funeral, he thought, shoving one scroll into its holder a little more strongly than necessary, for Orochimaru, her father.

_And to know me as hardly golden  
Is to know me all wrong, they warn.  
_Orochimaru, whether he liked it or not, had been a huge influence on his life. He was essentially the reason Kabuto was who he was now. Once he had been a Hyuuga, the heir to the main branch house, only eight years old and already a genius. Then he had met Orochimaru in Kikyo pass and his life was erased, replaced by Kabuto Yakushi, who was average and mediocre in every way. The Third Hokage had been the one to ask him to become a spy, but in the end, it was Kabuto who accepted, Kabuto who agreed to pretend to be a spy to send information back to the Third Hokage. The double agent growled in frustration. He got up and just stood before his desk, staring at it. This desk had been used to write secrets of the utmost importance to Sarutobi, things that saved Konoha from a horrible demise many times. However, it had also been home to pages and pages of medical notes on how many people had died under his knife on an examining table. Kabuto winced, pinching the bridge of his nose. So many dark deeds, all done to save Konoha. All hopefully done for the greater good.

_At every occasion, I'll be ready for the funeral  
At every occasion, once more, is called the funeral  
Every occasion, know I'm ready for the funeral  
At every occasion, oh, one million day funeral_

If it hadn't been for the years of acting on his part, the double agent was sure he would have broken down by now. If it weren't for all the self restraint and control, the silver haired man would be collapsed on the ground by now, wincing and screaming and raging at how life was unfair. Of course, he had learned very young that life was unfair. He had spent many of his days wishing in the back of his mind that Orochimaru would die so that he could return home; home to the family he had never seen in over twelve years, to the sisters he had never gotten to play with and mentor. After Sarutobi's curse and with Orochimaru's body deterioating at such a rapid rate, Kabuto had been sure that the ex-sannin would die at any day and reveled in the feeling. Sasuke had never shown any interest in taking over Sound Country and Sakura was locked away in Konoha, estranged after she betrayed her father and nearly stopped Sasuke. If Orochimaru had died, Kabuto would be free, his duty done. Without its leader, the country would have easily fallen before Konoha's might, especially with the knowledge Kabuto had of its inner workings. If not for one thing...

The double agent stood and threw everything off of his desk, papers and brushes clattering to the floor, the only noise in the entire complex. Respect for the dead demanded silence. The man angrily strode over to the far wall of his study, bashing his fist against it when he arrived. Damn it, he had been so close! Home had been within reach. All those years of nearly losing his life to defend Konoha, of being entirely prepared to do so if discovered, all meant very little now. His silver hair rested against the stone wall, hot angry tears burning down his cheeks as he grit his teeth. Because he had forgotten one variable in his equation. He forgot that Sakura would return to Sound. And that she had now become its ruler.

_I'm coming up only to shove you down,  
For I'm coming up only to show you wrong._

He remained where he was for perhaps half an hour, maybe more. The only way he knew time had passed was the fact that the candle flame was far lower than it had been when he walked over here. He sighed, bringing himself back under control again. His genjutsu had released on its own, he realized with a faint twinge of interest, and quickly resealed his lavander eyes out of habit. He was not going to give up. He had not come this far, come so close to returning, to be shot right back to the beginning like a rubber band. He was not going to lose home again. Kabuto walked wearily back to his desk, pulled the chair out so that it faced the black emptiness of his lab, and sat down.

Sakura was not her father. Although she was similar in many ways physically, she did not have his mindset. Not yet, at least. She would be far less of a threat than Orochimaru had been, since her anger was more passive than his. And of course, she was younger. That alone made her less dangerous. Kabuto's fingers began fidgeting nervously with his shirt hem. Besides, Konoha had plenty of intelligence on how Sakura usually behaved, and Kabuto himself could fill in how she was when she was younger and how she behaved in Sound. Their profile on her would be complete; there would be no need for a spy to continue watching her.

Part of him was still in denial, of course. The part that cared for Sakura when she was younger, who watched her from afar in Konoha and quietly altered the minds of those who bullied her, had been quietly gagged and buried deep beneath his thoughts. It screamed, of course, but Konoha screamed louder. And his sister Hinata stood atop it, silent yet more overpowering than any thing else in his head.

_To the outside: the dead leaves, they're on the lawn_  
_For they don't have trees to hang their own._

Once he had made up his mind and damned to hell all other options, Kabuto formed a clone and teleported it to Konoha. The substitution jutsu was really very versatile once you had grasped the basics. The message he had given it was simple; tell everything to Tsunade, no matter what the consequences. It took quite a long time and rather a lot of concentration on his part, to relay the vast amount of information through his clone and to keep his physical body from acting out what he was saying on the other end. In the end, the Sixth Hokage, reassured by the fact that he was a clone and thoroughly questioned by the ANBU, agreed to listen to his story.

He told her everything.

She was stunned, of course, by the number of seemingly random military manovers in the past that had, in fact, been actions directed by Kabuto's intelligence to deter an attack from Sound. She did not believe, of course, that he was actually a Hyuuga but at his insistance announced she would be making a visit to the Hyuuga elder the next day. And it was inevitable that she was stunned to learn of Sakura's true indentity. His clone was forced to wait for almost an hour as she frantically checked his facts and sent an ANBU messenger to her house to confirm that she had, in fact, been adopted and that she was not, as she said, visiting a deceased member of the Haruno family. She threatened him with death if what he said was not true. His clone simply shrugged and smiled.

He also told her of what he planned to do tomorrow. She nodded gravely and told him it was foolish, but that she couldn't stop him. She also said that he was welcome to take refuge in Konoha after he was done; as a double agent, at least until she confirmed whether or not he was a Hyuuga. He had hoped for all this. After all, Tsunade was his only support.

Once this was completed, he canceled the clone and slumped wearily into his chair. Again, the candle was much shorter than when he had begun. Perhaps only an hour's worth of light remained, which meant that it was well past ten o'clock and closer to eleven. He groaned with the effort of standing and, stiff muscles hampering him like an old man's would, limped to his bed. It was of average size, well blanketed against the cold of the stone warren, with an open pack lying at the end of it. He froze once he saw this, for he had begun packing it yesterday, cheerily stuffing it with the small things he still wanted and carefully destroying the rest. He had not wanted anyone to read the journals he left from the experiments he conducted under Orochimaru. After all, he had every single one branded in his mind, whether he liked it or not; there was no need to give that terrible knowledge to anyone else. The pack stared at him, and a quick, fleeting wish to simply run with it nearly overcame him. But the image of Sakura standing before him stamped it out and he collapsed on his bed, rolling over to stare blankly at the ceiling. The weight of his decision hung over him, a crushing feeling similar to the one he got when he first faced Manda; a terrible black mass with fangs and golden eyes, just waiting until the perfect moment to devour him. He finally took off his glasses, placing them on the floor beside his bed and extinguished the candle with a simple hand sign, leaving him in the oppressive darkness of his blood stained lab.

Kabuto did not sleep well that night.

_At every occasion, I'll be ready for the funeral  
At every occasion, once more, is called the funeral  
Every occasion, know I'm ready for the funeral  
At every occasion, oh, one million day funeral_

Kabuto didn't know whether to curse or bless his internal alarm clock when he finally opened his eyes. It hadn't worked, he could tell by the light under the door that the day was well underway, but simply the fact that it woke him from the exhausting nightmares was enough to thank it for. The spy put his glasses back onto his face, sealing his eyes again as he did; the chakra drain at night would have defeated the purpose of sleeping anyway. He got up from his bed, resisting the gravitational pull downwards, and glanced around. All was still quiet in the stone lair, as most people busied themselves with running Sound Country from behind the scenes. Sakura would be at the head of it, probably in Orochimaru's throne room. Kabuto heaved a rough sigh from his chest and walked over to his closet. Only a long cloak remained where reams of lab coats once were, for all the rest either had to be burned or were already destroyed in preparation for his departure. He shouldered on the cloak, pulling its hood over his head. He had to steel himself. If he did not, Sakura would see right through him and she was one of the only ones who could. Everything had to go just as he planned it, or else it would all go to Hell. And then he would never get back home.

He walked out of his lab and sealed the door behind him, smiling grimly. The seal he used today was not the one he usually used and it set off the selfdestruct mechanisms set on all the important pieces of his lab. He was not coming back, after all. He walked down the hall, recognizing from the various people bustling about that it was nearly six o'clock at night. He had slept later than he thought. He smiled to himself, and shrugged, just as Kabuto no Oto would do. He was preparing the funeral of Kabuto no Oto anyway, so it would not hurt to play the part one last time. He wandered down the halls, knowing that Sakura expected him in her throne room soon. Of course, she hadn't used such pretentious tones; that had been the messenger.

He was later than he thought he would be when he arrived in front of her guards. They stood firm in front of the gaping black doorway, spears crossed over a stream of cold air emanating from the portal; Orochimaru had arranged it that way. He handed them a pass, which they validated with a dispelling jutsu, then uncrossed their spears to allow him entrance. He could see Sakura beyond it, sitting on her father's old stone chair, looking expectantly at him, and he was never so gratefully for a hood in his life. He knew that once he crossed the threshold, everything would come tumbling down. He either took the step and returned to Konoha, or died in the effort. It was now or never; do or die.

He walked through the stone arch with supreme confidence. He would be the first to throw the dirt on the coffin of this funeral.


End file.
